Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 17, 1994 TAG: 9401260013
SECTION: NEWSFUN PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Nancy Gleiner Staff Writer
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
(I bet parents don't even like to clean their rooms. At least they don't ask you to do that!)
Here's what could happen if you don't clean your room.
You wake up in the middle of the night and slip out of bed for a quick drink of water. Ouch! You've hit a Lego mine field and probably stomped your latest creation to bits. Or maybe you trampled the newest pair of glow-in-the-dark Barbie high heels that didn't glow in the dark enough to warn you.
At least stepping on that Koosh ball near the doorway didn't hurt, it just felt like something weird that might have crawled out of a swamp. Was a drink of water worth going through all of this?
The next morning you clear a path from your bed to the doorway, in case you get thirsty again. It's Saturday! Sorry, no cartoon-watching until you (here it comes) ``Clean your room.'' No amount of begging, pleading or promising will sway Mom and Dad Neatness. Maybe it's time to talk.
First, get some important information. Did they have to clean their rooms when they were kids? (Bet they did.) Did they lose privileges if they didn't? (Bet they did.) Did they hate it? (Bet they did.) Did they argue as much with their parents about it? (Bet they didn't.)
Now that you have some idea that your parents weren't always neat grown-ups, maybe you can work out a deal. Get a pencil and a piece of paper. It's always good to write down terms so there's no misunderstanding - presidents do it a lot.
Sit down with whoever's in charge of telling you to (here it comes) ``Clean your room,'' and decide - calmly - how often you really need to clean your room and what happens if you don't do it by that time. Maybe once a week is enough and you can keep your door shut the rest of the time. Maybe twice a week is OK and your parents can turn their heads when they walk by your room the other days.
Now decide what happens if you don't keep your end of the deal. No TV or video games for three days? No dessert? No telephone? Being grounded? (Another saying those of you who responded to MiniForum said you hated.)
Write down the terms and have everyone sign it. Now, shake hands, hug or show some other sign of agreement and, maybe, affection. Then post the treaty on the refrigerator, the favorite place in the house for collecting art work, school notices, lunch menus, last year's soccer schedule and so many other important bits of paper that it's always hard to find what you put there so it would be easy to find.
Now that that's taken care of (here it comes again), ``Clean your room.'' Aside from not crushing your latest inventions or newest toys during night walks, you'll probably discover some things you've been ``looking for'' (which really means you had hoped they would turn up without your having to clean your room to find them) as well as the dirty socks that were thrown behind the door days ago. (Whew!) It will almost be like having something new, since it's been hiding in a corner or under the bed for a while, waiting for you to spot it, play with it and put it away.
Getting homework done is another area where you could negotiate (make deals) with your parents. Of course you don't ever want to do it. (Do you think they did?), so you have to be told to do it and whose job is it to do that - right, your parents! It certainly wouldn't be your friends' job; they're avoiding it just like you are.
If you never did homework, you would never pass any grades; then you would be in school for life, which means having homework assignments forever! Might as well get it over with! So, same plan - do your homework, then you can watch TV, play with friends, ride your bike or whatever plan you decide on.
While you're making all these deals, maybe you can work out something with your brothers and sisters. You know, ``I don't pick on you, you don't pick on me''; ``You don't tell Dad I've been picking on you, I clean your room.'' It's like making a peace treaty. If you don't break it, you won't have to hear your parents say - again - ``Quit picking on your brother (or sister)!''
If kids didn't ever listen to what their parents told them to do, the world would be full of children with rotting teeth, smelly bodies, starving pets, poor hearing from listening to music too loudly and houses overflowing with stinking trash that is never taken out.
Their table manners would be so awful they would never be allowed to eat in restaurants, which means they would spend a lot of time eating fast food in cars. They would be exhausted from never going to bed, but if they did manage to accidentally fall into bed (after stumbling on some toys they never put away), they would never want to get up - certainly not early and definitely not in time for school.
All they could say would be jingles from TV commercials because of constant TV-watching and their thumbs would be permanently indented from pressing buttons on video games. They would never go to their rooms because so many of them hate to be sent there by their parents.
This might all sound OK to you, but it reminds me of the scene in Pinocchio when the boys start turning into donkeys.
Parents have to keep trying to help you be smarter, neater, quieter, more well-mannered, better vegetable eaters. After all, it's what their parents did to them. Meeting them halfway might work for everybody. So, take out your pencil and paper and give them a break.
Just remember, if you've been sent to your room and you're really bored, you might as well clean it!
by CNB